If the Colorado Bluegrass Community wasn’t already tried as strong, this month represented a milestone for community support. Last month’s “100 Year Flood” damaged and displaced thousands in Boulder County. The worst was the devastation in Lyons, Colorado, home of the Planet Bluegrass Ranch and much of the Colorado Music Roots community. The Ranch hosts at least two huge annual festivals onsite that after 40 years of legendary performances have built a loyal following of devotees nationwide.

Fans of the Grateful Dead will continue to seek that special feeling their music brought for 30 years, though the group disbanded eighteen years ago. Bassist Phil Lesh recently announced for all practical purposes that he is retiring from touring, sticking to his Terrapin Crossroads locale with occasional exceptions. Though the other living members of the band will likely continue to tour and perform, their music tends to evolve with them as musicians.

Even avant-garde jazz needs structure. A boundless exploration of less touched musical realms still needs some foundation to stand on. Certain jazz purists don’t even consider fusion, free, or Avant-garde to be true jazz. I stand somewhere in between. The music of Miles Davis, Joe Zawinul, and Ornette Coleman is as canonical as Duke Ellington or Bing Crosby. Evolution is vital to keep music interesting, especially in the richly complex world of jazz.

For Les Claypool, image has never been an important part of being a god amongst bass players. He is the antithesis of image-orientation in rock music. The Claypool persona is obscurity. For years his live performances muffled any sense of ordinary human interaction. Pig and Ape masks would obscure his face. If not a mask then a large pair of specs and handlebar mustache added to his image vagary. He sings into two different microphones, both add a level of vocal distortion depending on how he controls his midi.

What was once an anomaly is now a standard. Many lovers of classic Bay Area rock, blues, bluegrass, and beyond are investing in live archival releases above studio albums. Thanks to accessibility through vault discoveries and painstaking restoration, live recordings that are forty-plus years old are being heard by the band and fans alike for the first time. Artists such as Neil Young, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Hot Tuna are releasing performances that haven’t been heard by audiences since the date of original performance.

No other performer in bluegrass, living or dead, has shown more devoted revere for their specific roots than Del McCoury. When I interviewed Del for Grateful Web last year he explained that though he is thrilled that bluegrass is bigger today than it was back in the 40s and 50s, that nothing could replace that 50,000 watt clear channel radio station that aired performances from the Grand Ole’ Opry.

Grateful Dead music continues to inspire and muse generations of contemporary musicians. When the band played, their music fostered an experience each night that transformed the ordinary bounds of everyday life beyond possibility. A trip into the transcendental. Even if the words and melodies were familiar to followers, something about their approach of spontaneity and improvisation combined with an overarching reworking of Americana made the music familiar and new simultaneously.

The need to represent some sort of social responsibility is a fundamental ethic for Newgrass quintet Infamous Stringdusters. Instead of throwing an occasional benefit concert with proceeds going to a certain charity, they decided to call their Summer 2013 Tour the American Rivers Tour.

Nobody in the current concert and touring scene has done more to up the ante for music festivals and “happenings” than the String Cheese Incident. This should come as no surprise to some.  In addition to pioneering their own unique sound and instrumentation, the band has evolved with its fans over the years. They started their own record and ticketing companies to keep their CD releases and events reasonably priced and under their control.

GW: This is Dylan Muhlberg of Grateful Web here with Tim O'Brien who is widely acknowledged as a master songwriter and virtuoso multi-instrumentalist. His groundbreaking style fuses various elements of Country, Blues, Bluegrass, and Folk, while remaining progressive in character. Mr.